Event details

MODS:

CUP_TERRAIN_CORE

CUP_TERRAINS_MAPS

CUPTerrains_CWA

ACE

ACEX

ACRE2

CBA_A3

FACESOFWAR

IFA3LITE

ALL MODS CAN BE FOUND ON THE ATC REPO.

At 5.50, on 6 June, the 1,738th day of the war, 138 Allied ships, positioned between three and thirteen miles out, began their tremendous bombardment of the German coastal defenses. Above them, one thousand

RAF bombers attacked, followed in turn by one thousand planes of the USAAF. Between them, the aircrews flew 13,688 sorties over the course of D-Day alone.

From our ships, weighed down with weapons and seventy pounds of equipment, scaled down scramble nets and into our flat-bottomed landing craft.

It will take over three hours for the vessels to traverse the eleven or so miles to the coast.

The men, trembling with abject fear, shivering from the cold and suffering from severe sea sickness, endured and held on as their tightly-packed vessels are smashed by six-foot high waves and eighteen-miles per hour winds.

At 6.30, the first US troops landed on Omaha and Utah beaches.

The defenses around Omaha are formidable. Rommel’s men have placed thousands of ‘dragon’s teeth’ on the beach, designed to take out the base of landing craft, and topped with mines.

Gun emplacements have the entire length of beach within their range. The naval bombardment and subsequent aerial bombardment although effective elsewhere have made little impact on Omaha. Ten landing craft have already been sunk.

Men, leaping into water too deep, drowned, weighed down by their equipment, try not to make the same mistake, stay within the craft until the gate is lowered, take care of each other.

The congested beach at Omaha has become a killing field, littered with bodies, burning tanks and equipment. The noise of screams, gunfire and bombardment filled the air. Terrified men, sprinting, as best as they could across the expanse of beach, found a degree of cover at the base of the cliffs – if they managed to get that far; many have not.